For first-time visitors, the big sights are Buenos Aires, Iguazú Falls, and Patagonia’s Moreno Glacier. Since most will arrive in Buenos Aires, this simplifies logistics, but great distances mean that flying to Iguazú and Patagonia is unavoidable.

Buenos Aires is the starting point—and the flashpoint—of Argentine history. Time has transformed, if not erased, the colonial quarters of Monserrat and San Telmo, but it’s the epic of independence, the era of immigration and excess, the populism of the Peróns, and the ruthless 1976–1983 dictatorship that helped create contemporary Argentina.

Early Argentine art is derivative, but Buenos Aires is now the heart of a vigorous contemporary painting, sculpture, and multimedia scene. The city has only a handful of late colonial constructions around the Plaza de Mayo.

Argentina’s finest colonial art and architecture survives in the northwest, on an axis that runs south from Jujuy and Salta through Tucumán and Córdoba. Contrasting with Mesopotamia’s verdant subtropical vegetation, bright red sandstone blocks distinguish Mesopotamia’s colonial Jesuit missions; indigenous Guaraní artisans crafted the elaborate adornments.

Visitors who can’t make it out of Buenos Aires will find numerous wine bars where they can sample the country’s best, and restaurants around the country carry a broad selection.

But true aficionados should spend at least a week in and around Mendoza—but that’s not nearly enough time to visit all the 100-plus wineries around the provincial capital. The vineyards of San Rafael, two hours to the south, and San Juan, two hours north, are also worth checking out.

In its nearly three million square kilometers, Argentina can offer an astonishing diversity of natural environments. Ascending the Paraná and the Uruguay Rivers, several national parks have similar concentrations of birds and aquatic life, but the real can’t-miss is the Esteros del Iberá marshes, in Corrientes Province, where the colorful subtropical birds, reptiles, and mammals are reason enough to visit Argentina for a week or more. For wildlife-watching, the famous Iguazú Falls finish a distant second.

Colloquially known as the Plaza de Protestas, the Plaza de Mayo has often played center stage in Argentine history. The Peróns, in particular, used it for spectacle, convoking hundreds of thousands of descamisados (shirtless ones), their fervent underclass disciples.

Internationally, though, the plaza gained fame for some of its smallest gatherings ever. From the late 1970s, the Madres de la Plaza de Mayo marched silently around the Pirámide de Mayo, the plaza’s small central obelisk, every Thursday afternoon to demand the return of their adult children kidnapped by the armed forces and paramilitary gangs. Most of the disappeared died at their captors’ hands, but the mothers brought Argentina’s shame to world attention.

One of Buenos Aires’s most quietly traditional places, Café Tortoni (Avenida de Mayo 825) has made no concessions to the 21st century and only a few to the 20th: Upholstered chairs and marble tables stand among sturdy columns beneath a ceiling punctuated by stained-glass vitraux, the wallpaper looks original between the stained wooden trim, and walls are decorated with pictures, portraits, and filete, the traditional porteño sign-painter’s calligraphy.

As Calle Florida became an elegant shopping district in the late 19th century, Francisco Seeber and Emilio Bunge were the main shareholders in the proposed Bon Marché Argentino, inspired by Milan’s Galleria Vittorio Emmanuelle II. Unfortunately for Seeber and Bunge, their French investors backed out, but Seeber resurrected the project by 1894 as the Galería Florida.

Possibly the continent’s most important performing arts venue, the ornate Colón (1908) is approaching its centenary on a roll, as it’s due to complete its master plan for a gala reopening on May 25, 2008. Even during the recent crisis, when devaluation made it impossible to pay for top-tier international opera, ballet, and symphonic performers, it still managed to present first-rate local talent in opera, ballet, symphony, and occasionally in more popular idioms.

Six days a week, Plaza Dorrego is a quiet shady square where porteños sip cortados and nibble lunches from nearby cafés. On weekends, though, it swarms with Argentine and foreign visitors who stroll among dozens of antiques stalls at the Feria de San Pedro Telmo, the most famous and colorful of the capital’s numerous street fairs. Items range from antique soda siphons to brightly painted filete plaques with piropos (aphorisms), oversized antique radios, and many other items.